HINDOL: As Baghadharia village in Hindol mourns the death of three of its residents in the recent elephant encounter, 70-year-old Amira Majhi stands in silence, his weathered face shadowed by worry.
Once a proud farmer, Majhi now stares at his acres of land lying fallow for years owing to relentless crop depredation by the wild animals, particularly elephants and boar. His livelihood now depends on the meagre earnings of his two sons, who left the village six years back to work as daily wagers in Gujarat and Bengaluru.
“Farming here has become extremely difficult. More so because of the frequent movement of elephants close to villages in search of food,” the old man said with a heavy voice and frustration.
While the five acre agriculture land of their family is now lying abandoned for over a decade owing to frequent raids by the elephants and other wild animals, Majhi is unsure if he would be able to save the vegetable crop he is growing in another half acre close to Baghadharia.
Shadow of rampage
In the face of rising conflict, Majhi’s only wish now is for these ‘gentle giants’ to move far from his home. Like Majhi, farmers across villages in Hindol region of Dhenkanal have grown increasingly fearful and hostile towards the pachyderms and other wild animals. The grief of losing loved ones, combined with loss of livelihood, has made them more rigid, making co-existence difficult.
“We spend months tending to our fields, only to see them destroyed overnight,” said 40-year-old Bibhuti Bhusan Dehury, a farmer of Nuabaga village as he shared the plight of his tilled agriculture land damaged by a herd of elephants, just 20 days back.
Dehury said he has applied for compassionate grant under Odisha government’s Anukampa scheme and waiting for the aid to be disbursed for the last 15 days. “It’s impossible to survive like this,” he rued.
“Crop loss is pushing farmers to the brink across Hindol. In many cases it is forcing families to abandon agriculture altogether,” said 25-year-old Chittaranjan Majhi from the area.
Pushback at big cost
The crisis, however, is not one-sided. Forest officials admit that there has been an alarming rise in elephant fatalities over the years, primarily from poisoning, illegal charging of solar fences with direct current and other forms of human retaliation. Wild boar and other smaller species too get killed in snares and traps.
Rampant use of solar fences by the farmers in their desperate attempt to save crops from depredation, has started turning into a major deterrent for elephant movement in the region. Illegal electrification of solar fences have also claimed lives of multiple elephants in the recent years.
The magnitude of the conflict in the region can be gauged from the fact that Dhenkanal forest division has reported the highest number of elephant deaths and human casualties in wild animal attack in Odisha in the last six years, a crisis that can no longer be ignored.
As per Forest department’s statistics, at least 74 elephants have died of multiple reasons, including electrocution, in the division between 2019-20 and 2024-25. A total of 167 people have also lost their lives in wild animal attack in the division during this period. While 10 elephants died in the division in 2024-25, at least 23 people died in elephant and other wild animal attack the same year.
Walking the tightrope
Caught in the middle are the frontline forest staff, tasked with the responsibility of safeguarding both people and wildlife. Overburdened and understaffed, they spend long hours patrolling buffer zones in Hindol, Kapilash, Kamakhyanagar, Sadangi and other forest ranges to drive elephants away from human settlements, only to face the anger of villagers demanding immediate protection and compensation.
“We are caught between protecting the animals and calming the aggrieved villagers,” said Anil Bhutia, a protection squad member of Rasol section in Hindol.
Elephant protection squad members in Hindol also said that there are instances where they have been held by villagers seeking immediate relocation of elephants, only to be rescued with the help of police. “Things sometimes get worse when an elephant herd gets divided and strays close to multiple human settlements. If we attend to one village, the other side loses its patience,” said Soubhagya Sahu, a forest guard.
Sahu said raising awareness about the critical role elephants play in forest ecosystems is tricky in conflict situation. “Delivering such messages, especially when emotions are high due to a recent tragedy, is extremely challenging,” he said.
As it is, around 400 elephants are currently inhabiting the Dhenkanal region, with nearly 200 in Hindol range alone, the highest concentration in any forest range across the state. To deal with the situation fraught with tension, conservationists warned that only awareness wouldn’t suffice.
Way forward
Retired IFS officer Suresh Kumar Mishra said urgent interventions including safe passage for the elephants and enhanced compensation are a must to prevent things from deteriorating in the near future. The conflict has escalated as elephants have remained trapped in the small habitat patches due to linear infrastructure like railway line, NH and Rengali canal. The Anantapur-Kanheijena corridor that elephant herds were using from Dhenkanal division to move to Keonjhar is now severed.
“We have to secure their corridor and provide them safe passage. At the same time adequate compensation also needs to be given to farmers and other victims of wild animal attack to assuage their feelings and prevent them from retaliatory measures. This should be the top priority,” he stressed.
Surjyakanta Sahu, a villager from Nuabaga said the movement of elephants close to human habitations in the area have increased primarily due to their food habits. “If Forest department starts planting more fruit bearing trees including banana and jackfruit, the problem could be addressed to a considerable extent,” Sahu said.